BUSINESS: Russia Puts Strategic Resources Offlimits To Foreign Business, page 1

Russia's natural resources ministry has announced that for this year companies bidding on tenders of Russian strategic resources will have to be at least 51% Russian owned. The reversion to protectionist policy was discouraging but not alarming to experts. Many nations restrict foreign companies from developing their resources. Russia claims it is simply interested in letting Russian companies conduct that business.

www.deepikaglobal.com
MOSCOW, Feb 11 (Reuters) Russia will bar foreign-owned firms from bidding for some of its most lucrative natural resources in 2005, officials said on Thursday, dealing a heavy blow to the already shaky business climate in the country.

The Natural Resources Ministry said companies will have to be at least 51 per cent Russian-owned to take part in tenders for strategic oil and metals deposits.

The decision comes at a time when the Kremlin is seeking to reassert state control over strategically important sectors in a process many analysts said may put a brake on the investment needed to sustain the rapid economic growth of recent years.

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If the experts aren't alarmed we probably shouldn't be either, right? Still, Russia's recent actions involving Yukos show that this government definately is interested in reasserting government control over industry. It occurs to me that foreign ownership of companies would pose certain obstacles to government takeovers which Russia could unilaterally defeat with companies which are domestically owned. I suppose this is what makes me both a conspiracy theorist and a conservative- I harbor suspicions that everyone around me is engaged in a communist plot.

[edit on 16-2-2005 by TrickmastertricK]